Poll: US taxpayers want more funding for scientific research

Substantial majorities of US voters not only favor solving major issues …

The Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) released the results of a phone poll performed early in June that show the US public is strongly in favor of addressing many of the country's problems through scientific innovation. Although there were partisan differences on specific issues, majorities in both parties favor dedicating federal funding for scientific research, including that directed to climate change. The poll may help the organization's campaign to get Congressional and Presidential candidates to commit to positions on science policy issues.

The poll was conducted in mid-June, and involved a phone survey of over 1,000 US voters. Subjects were asked whether science policy issues, including education, health care, energy, and climate change would influence their votes. Candidates who were in favor of scientific solutions to these issues were more likely to receive the votes of a majority of those polled, in some cases much more likely.

Strong majorities (roughly 85 percent) favored candidates that supported science education efforts and research directed toward improving healthcare, with a majority of voters saying those candidates were much more likely to get their vote. Nearly 80 percent would support candidates that proposed handling energy issues through scientific research, and 70 percent had a similar opinion on the related issue of climate change. Perhaps most significantly, all of the questions were phrased specifically in terms of spending federal money. When asked more generally about federal funding of science, over 70 percent would support candidates that favored government research funding

In general, many Republicans are on record as being against government spending, and there were partisan splits on nearly every question, with independents lining up roughly in the middle. The smallest difference came in the area of education, where Republicans were about 10 percent less supportive than Democrats (80 vs. 92 percent). The split was in the area of 15-20 percent on the remaining issues, with the exception of climate change, where 84 percent of Democrats favored candidates who were willing to fund research on the issue; a slight majority of Republicans did. Still, that majority places the Republican electorate well in front of their federal representatives.

At a press conference announcing the poll, Lesley Stone, SEA's Executive Director, said the poll was decisive. "It's really clear to me from the poll that public policy decisions need to be based on science," she said, "that's what the public thinks." Shawn Otto, from Science Debate 2008 went further, suggesting that a preference for scientific solutions to issues have become, "an important part of the American psyche and the American way of life."

Vint Cerf was on hand as well, and he called the US' poor broadband service and the lack of a national policy an example of where a governmental focus on technology was holding the US back. He suggested candidates should be willing to take some bold steps: commit to a neutral 'Net and reevaluate the way regulations have fostered a market where there's no facilities-based competition.

Although the numbers look good for science, it's important to keep in mind that people responding to polls often do not rationalize their answers with their other beliefs; the public will happily decide to spend money on research, but will be less likely to favor actually paying for it through taxes. Similarly, it's one thing to favor an improved science education, but the public is very ambiguous about actually implementing a rigorous biology curriculum. As Neal Lane, a former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy put it, "the public thinks about the science differently depending on how the question is asked."

But the panelists generally agreed that the numbers from these polls make science and technology funding in line with other topics that the public cares deeply about, and that alone should be sufficient reason for candidates to spell out where they stand. Referring to a set of questions that Science Debate 2008 has sent to the Presidential candidates, Lane said, "a thoughtful answer to these questions can do an enormous amount of good in helping the electorate understand the issues and also know where they are relative to this particular candidate's view." To make it easier to pin a relevant candidate down on the Congressional level, the SEA has created a site that lets you find your candidates and send science-related questions on to them.